


Endure

by Drel_Murn



Series: Step by Step [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ba Sing Se, Dreamsharing, Fire Nation (Avatar), Fire Nation Capital, Fire Nation Royal Family, Firebending & Firebenders, Gen, Honoiro, Honoiro | Fire Nation Capital, Meddling, Meddling Spirits, Siege of Ba Sing Se, Spirits, Stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:41:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8146115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drel_Murn/pseuds/Drel_Murn
Summary: It began, as many things do, with a dream.In the end, I ran out of time, with unspoken questions, apologies, emotions all ash on my tongue.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Embers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3591783) by [Inkgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkgirl/pseuds/Inkgirl), [Vathara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vathara/pseuds/Vathara). 



It began, as many things do, with a dream.

 

I open my eyes to a sea of nothingness, and I know that I am in a dream. There’s an odd feeling bubbling beneath my skin, the feeling that I should be frightened because there is _nothing_ around me, but all that comes is the sensation of being half asleep, half awake, with the lassitude that comes with.

 

It isn’t until I’m slipping more towards being awake that I realize there is something clenched in my arms, but I’m blinking at Nuan shaking me before I can look down.

 

“Lu Ten, your cousin has arrived,” he says, and I blink at him before my eyes widen and I scramble to my feet, trying to ignore the odd sense of something _off_ , my arms empty.

 

“How is she? Is the baby alright?”

 

“They’re both fine,” Nuan assures me with a smile. “Though the Fire Sages have been called to attend him.”

  
_The Fire Sages were called -_

 

I fly off the wall and bolt into my aunt’s room. In many ways, she is the mother I never had, taking care of me ever since she first came to the palace. Ursa looks up as I rush in, and she smiles at me, tilting the nest of blankets in her arms slightly as I skid to a stop next to her bed, and I sigh in relief. The Fire Sages are supposed to protect us, but when they are called at a birth, it’s not a good thing.

 

I sigh in relief, and reach out to touch the little cousin’s face.

 

“What did you name him?” I ask, watching in awe as the baby scrunches his red nose and yawns, showing two rows of toothless gums,.

 

“His name is Zuko,” Ursa says, and her voice is so full of love that I can’t help but smile as I look back up at her.

 

I startle slightly when a hand lands on my shoulder, automatically flinching away from everyone as all firebenders are taught in order to keep others safe before I recognise Nuan’s hand on my shoulder.

 

“You should let her rest,”  my servant says, and I almost protest before I look at Ursa again and see the  exhaustion on her face.

 

My father, who was sitting on the other side of the bed, smiles at me as  I notice him, and I sigh, taking one last look at me little cousin before I allow Nuan to pull me away.

 

I don’t really think about the fact that Uncle Ozai never showed up for the birth of his first son until I’m in my room, being tucked in by Nuan.

 

“Nuan?”

 

“Yes?” my servant asks, gently smoothing my hair back.

 

“Was Uncle Ozai there earlier?”

 

I can hear Nuan’s breath hitch at the question before he shakes his head slightly, the movement barely discernable in the darkness. “Go to sleep my lord.”

 

* * *

 

It’s been a year since little Zuko was born, and night after night, I have what originally seemed to be the same dream again and again, knowing in my heart that I am in a dream, that I should be frightened out of my wits, and yet always comforted by the solid weight in my arms, and held in place

 

It was a month before I managed to gather the strength to fight the sleepiness off, and when I did, I found a pair of bright blue eyes - water tribe blue like my cousin’s should have been when he first opened them instead of the forbidden dragon gold - staring at him out of a child’s face. The child babbles curiously, making a sound for the first time I’m aware, and I fall as in love with his as I am with my baby cousin.

 

The dream lasted slightly longer that time, and each time I managed to fight off more of the drowsiness, it lasted longer, and each day the child grew slightly, just like Zuko.

 

He’s started actually trying to mimic me as I talked to him at some point, opening his mouth and making adorable little ama noises.

 

I never tell anyone about my dreams, especially after I notice that his eyes ner change from that same clear ocean blue they had been on the day I met him.

 

The nothingness I was aware of when I first started dreaming gradually gives way to the strange juxtaposition of volcanos, lakes, and glaciers.

 

And at some point, he starts moving, first just crawling around like Zuko, but eventually I fall asleep one night and wake up to see him standing on the other side of the small clearing that we’ve stayed in, taking wobbly steps towards me. I watch him with wide eyes fome a moment before he notices me and gives me a bright smile that contrasts sharply against skin I had never realised was so dark before he promptly falls over onto his rear and lets out a wail.

 

I stifle a laugh and and quickly go over to him and quickly check to make sure that he’s alright, and hold him quietly until he stops sniffling in my arms.

 

The night after that happens, I’m carrying him around and talking to him about everything and nothing when I hear something I wasn’t expecting.

 

“-and Aunt Ursa’s just waiting for Zuko to try walking or talking -”

 

“Lulu.”

 

I stop mid sentence and look down at the child cradled in my arms.

 

“Did you say something?” I ask, like Aunt Ursa had told me to do with Zuko if he ever said something that sounded like it had meaning. The child’s face scrunches up.

 

“Lulu.”

 

I laugh and shift the child’s position slightly so that I can hug him. “You did! You said my name! Oh! Say my name again.”

 

The child looks delighted by my reaction, and he repeats my name over and over. I start point out things in the surrounds after that, and I notice them becoming more and more realistic, animals starting to rustle the trees and grass as we walk, birds flying overhead, and calling to each other.

 

* * *

 

Another year passes, then two then three, the little Water Tribe boy growing up and learning everything I can teach him without making him bored while we’re in the dreams. Alongside teaching him a Fire Nation accent and High court, I teach him everything I can think of.

 

At some point while he’s young, he comes to me, looking like he’s had a revelation, and points to himself. “Sokka.”

 

I blink, blanking entirely on what he’s trying to tell me for a moment before he points at me. “Lulu.”

 

Then he points at himself. “Sokka.”

 

Understanding comes to me in a flash, and I find myself unsure of what to says because in the two years I had known him at the time, I never thought to give him a name.

 

“Sokka?” I ask, carefully pronouncing the unfamiliar syllables, and the child before me nods. I smile at him and repeat his name. “Sokka. Hello.”

 

Now, five years after my little cousin’s birth is the first time my grandfather allows me into the battle room, and I listen in disgust as the generals _casually_ discuss sending out our _newest troops_ on _suicide missions_. It is only my father’s hand clenching down on my knee whenever I think of speaking up that keeps me from it.

 

There are our people, people we have been given to love and protect, and even more so because this is the military, which holds those who signed their lives away in the hopes that we would be good commanders and keep them alive. I know the army promotes on merit - or at least it is supposed to - but these are the best strategists we have?

 

The very thought of _letting_ my people die makes me nauseous, but purposefully killing them? It is only my years of training as a firebender that keep the damage limited to the fabric of my pants clenched in my fists. I have to make myself remember that some people don’t have the same instinct for protection like I do - the instinct to protect every person I claim as my own because that is my duty, that is my _honor_ . I have to remind myself that for them, it is different. For them, their instincts drive them to protect _us_ , to fulfil our needs.

 

I want to cry in relief when, after all of the generals have laid out their plans,  grandfather dismisses all of the ones that involve suicide missions.

 

But that night when I dream, I can’t face Sokka. I run away from him as soon as I wake up, and I dance in a field as far from the center of the dreamscape as is possible. And while at first it’s only the purely practical for only fighting moves that my instructors are teaching me, sharp and full of hanger, it becomes something that is truly a dance, smooth, flowing dance that stains the fire with colors I’ve only heard of, beautiful greens and blues that remind me of life.

 

I don’t know where the moves come from, but in the end, I’m lying on the ground, curled up as tears run down my face. I’d thrown up several times, just thinking of what the generals suggested, and now I don’t really feel anything except numb.

 

And that is how Sokka finds me that night, curled up and empty of emotion. He manages to make me sit up, and eventually stand, chattering away in the way children do sometimes, and I look at his face and feel guilty because he is Water Tribe, and I know that my people have and will continue to destroy his people, ruthlessly tearing them apart in their quest for domination.

 

And that’s when I start making plans. When I wake up, I take out a brush and a piece of paper, and sit down at my desk, not even bothering to change out of my night clothes. Nuan come sleepily out of the chamber off of mine in order to wake me up long after I’d started, only to find me cursing as I try to get the shape of Sokka’s nose right, a pile of discarded papers beside me.

 

“Lu Ten?” he asks warily, and it makes my heart ache to know that my only friend fears me, that this is the only place that he dares call me by name. “What are you doing? Is that someone from the Water Tribe?”

 

I turn and blink at him, rubbing a hand over my eyes and unheeding of the ink that now stains my face. “Yes, but I can get his face right, no matter how hard I try.”

 

Nuan blinks at me, then sighs and comes closer. “Why are you trying to paint this boy?”

 

“He’s important,” I murmur, but I feel slightly guilty as I look as the pile of used paper to my right. “I - I can’t tell you why. But he’s important.”

 

Nuan sighs slightly. “Can I help?”

 

“Can you draw?”

 

“I’d like to think you already know the answer to that,” Nuan says, and I blush slightly as I remember that classes we took in drawing years ago because a prince must be trained in the fine arts, and his servant must know him. To be honest, I drew slightly worse that I was truly able to for a long time in that class because I knew that Nuan liked it. He’d been so much better than me in the end, so I considered it a job well done.

 

“Here,” I say, standing and moving to the side so that Nuan can sit. “I’ve actually been able to get most of it, but not all of the same paper.”

 

I ruffle through my discard papers, and pull out a couple where I’d managed to get some feature right. “He’s got this hair, this nose, this mouth, this chin, this neck, these eyes, these ears, and this neck.”

 

“Alright,” Nuan slight, rubbing the sleep out of his eves again. “Do you know his name?”

 

I pause for a moment, considering because names are important. Then I pause as an idea comes to me. “Call him Rakesh.”

 

It’s not a name entirely out of place, the general sound of it is very much of Fire, but the meaning hints as something deeper. Lord of the full-moon day, the day most powerful for waterbenders.

 

Nuan’s lips curl slightly, no doubt catching the meaning before he turns back to the desk. “So which part has a good head shape?”

 

Later, he doesn’t say anything when I have him open an account for Rakesh, and begin to put my allowance there.

 

* * *

 

My little cousin has grown as well, but his father likes him even less with each passing minute, disappointed that his son, the line of Sozin, has not produced a firebending heir. His attentions are focused ever more on Zuko’s little sister Azula, while Zuko is sent on increasingly long says with Piandao.

 

There is even talk, seemingly only gossip that he will be fostered out to him, and my heart can’t help but break every time I see the light die slowly in Zuko’s eyes every time he comes back. He’s always so happy at first, until he hears the first whisper of gossip, and his eyes go dead. I understand the reasoning - without the ability to protect himself, Zuko has gained numerous scars hidden under the extravagant robes of his station. It would make more sense for him to go to Piandao and learn to fulfil some other valuable role for the Fire Lord.

 

Grandfather says nothing, watching Zuko with hooded eyes at meals, and despite the reasoning, I always sigh in relief every time Zuko comes back.

 

* * *

 

On my twentieth birthday, Sokka comes to me enthusiastically with a shadowy imitation of a person following behind him, clinging to the back of his shirt.

 

“Lulu Ten! Lulu Ten! Look what I found! This is Tonrar!”

 

“That’s not exactly a nice name,” I say, watching the shadows warily. The being I can see is see through, and he shivers in the bright light of the dreamscape. “He looks like the light hurts him, why don’t we go to the shade.”

 

Sokka looks horrified by my comment, and quickly hurries into the shade of the trees. While we’re there, waiting for Tonrar to stop shaking, Sokka tells me how he found Tonrar as I eye the spirit. Once he’s at the end of his tale, I ask him to go pick some apnanas for the two of us, and he obliges happily.

 

“So, Tonrar,” I say, turning to face the shadow person, and it hisses at me, unrestrained without Sokka here. “I do hope you understand exactly what you’re getting into. If you harm Sokka in any way . . .”

 

I flick my fingers and let flame swirl around them, dance in a style utterly unlike that of modern firebending. The shadow eyes the flames then nods. Then it glares at me and makes a motion I’ve seen before, meant to simulate a knife running across the throat.

 

A couple of weeks later, Sokka comes back with a second spirit, this one a bright person made of a strange blue-white light that has a personality almost opposite to that of the shadow being’s. Sokka lets me name it, and I do so with a lump in my throat. Iqniq, fire from comets and meteors.

 

* * *

 

On my twenty first birthday, Zuko bends for the first time, he’s eight, and the pair of us are alone when he does so. It doesn’t register with me when it happens, a flicker of flames as he sighs, resigned to his fate. But I’m a bender, and I can’t mistake what I feel. He’s eight, and there are actual arrangements now to foster him out.

 

The both of us freeze, then I jump towards him and hug him, laughing in relief. I coax him through the exercises that everyone is taught - just in case. I frown slightly as I watch him, because he acts slightly off. He never needs any correction after I first lead him through the exercises, because he adjusts himself back every time I’m about to call out a correction he shifts back to the correct form, his lips moving as if arguing with himself.

 

In, out, he breathes, and he moves through the forms slowly, but with more grace in his way than the instructors with their supposedly perfect forms ever had. It reminds me of the dance I had done in the dreamscape, no move ending, everything flowing like fire.

 

Nuan and Zuko’s servant Vasuman are both there, but it’s easy enough to know that they will not tell anyone before we reveal the secret ourselves. Honor urges confession, but we are their to protect, no matter who our loyalty is to.

 

He’s able to consistently bend a plume of fire above his hand now, his breathing the only thing that keeps it alight, and at dinner when conversation pauses and politely turns to Zuko, he doesn’t shyly pass his turn to his sister as he has every time before. Instead, he holds his hand out, palm up, and _breathes_ -

 

The courtiers mutter because of course the royal family can’t be alone for dinner, and who’s heard of a child starting to bend only this late? Aunt Ursa ignores the whispers and leans sideways to give her son a warm hug. I shiver slightly as the hidden rage I can see in Uncle Ozai’s eyes, and finally I  turn my eyes to Grandfather. He is watching Zuko with hooded eyes like always, and I wonder if perhaps he knows something I don’t.

 

* * *

 

 

At twenty one, I am trusted to finally begin to suggest plans in the war room, and my grandfather insists that I must give at least one plan every meeting. And every meeting for me is all of the meetings, one very day as more communications are brought in by messenger hawks.

 

I concentrate more and more on my lessons in strategy, and at night, when I’m not dancing myself into exhaustion, I’m teaching Sokka everything I can think of on how to act like he is from the Fire Nation. At some point, I show Zuko the pictures that Nuan draws from my multitude, and explain to him that this is someone special to me, that if he ever sees him, he must not hurt him.

 

I spend all of my free time with Zuko, and when my father comes home, his eyes distant with things that no man should see, he spends time with us and teaches us about the bending styles he’s fought against.

 

I can feel Nuan and Vasuman’s attention whenever my father teaches us, and when he is gone, I invite them to come and learn as well so that Zuko and I have more opponents than ourselves.

 

It feels like I can’t stop moving, even at night, and people notice, telling me with too bright smiles that my time to be a hero, to go to war will come. I smile back and laugh, pretending that is the reason, and no the foreboding and ever growing feeling that my death is coming.

 

A month after I show him the picture of Sokka, Zuko shows me a picture of an old man. I can see Vasuman’s help in the graceful lines, and I examine the picture as Zuko tells me shyly that this is the person he sees at night. “Like your Rakesh, right?”

 

I nod slightly, examining the features of the man. The picture is an odd one because I can see the delicacy of Fire Nation features under his wrinkled skin, but his hair and clothes are that of the Northern Water Tribe. I know this because I’d studied Water Tribe clothing while I tried to figure out where Sokka was.

 

“Only, I hear him out of my dreams as well,” Zuko says whispering that snippet of information under his breath, like he hopes I won’t hear it.

 

I blink at him, then rub a hand over my hair. “Alright. So what do you want to practice now.”

 

* * *

 

Twenty two feels like a betrayal of all that I am, all that I hold dear, as I am sent out in the field in order to gain more experience.

 

At twenty two, I am expected to not only plan, but to fight and kill. I can taste nothing but bitterness as I come up with plan after plan in attempts to save everyone I can, and my troops love me for it. We put on show of power, and each night, after teaching Sokka whatever I can think of to help him, I curl up and cry.

 

And it’s at twenty two that Sokka’s Tribe is attacked by the Fire Nation for the first time in his life. The tribes around him have been attacked, but his tribe, the wolves, hasn’t been attacked since before he was born, and his mother is taken, accused of being a waterbender in order to protect her daughter, the actual waterbender.

 

The first night, after yelling at me, Sokka runs away and curls up sobbing. Tonrar and Iqniq follow him, trying to comfort him, but their insubstantial forms just pass through him.

 

The second night is after my first time out in the field, and the neither of us are really willing to talk. And the day after we sit back to back, and Sokka tells me about his mother. Before I wake up, he tells me that his father has decided that his Tribe will leave and go to war with the Fire Nation.

 

After that, I lean his customs from him, what different colors mean, the words they use that I’ve never heard of. He takes me to the glaciers and teaches me about the different types of snow. I learn how to be a Water Tribesman in my dreams, and kill people in my waking hours. My pillow it stiff from my tears, and Nuan draws away from me more and more as we wage war.

 

* * *

 

I’m still twenty two when set siege to Ba Sing Se, but I turn twenty three not long after. The year is long and hard, and I lose more men in half the year than I did the previous year. The feeling that I’m running out of time grows ever stronger and stronger as the twenty fourth birthday grows closer, and I don’t bother to tell anyone when I wake up one day to find a certain stillness.

 

I sit at the portable desk in my tent calmly and write a letter to Nuan. We’ve grown apart in the years I’ve been on campaign, but I still trust him with my life every day. I tuck the letter under my pillow and pull my armour on.

 

We fight the earthbenders against their Great Wall, and they frantically hold us off, but we didn’t get this far on luck, and slowly but surely we push them back. Fire is burning around me, boulders flying like that was what they were meant to do, and thunder rolls over the earth suddenly. I glance up, and find myself gaping as the Great Wall of Ba Sing Se falls on my army, falls on me, and there is nowhere to run.

 

“No!” I hear someone exclaim, and feet pound the soil behind me, Nuan skidding to a halt in front of me, his feet planted in a strangely familiar way that takes me only a moment to identify as one of the stances that my father taught me and Zuko, and I leap forward towards him, trying to cover him because he isn’t a bender, he can’t protect us, but maybe I can protect him -  He moves decisively, his face deceptively calm as the rocks fall straight towards his head.

 

I stare at him in disbelief as the rocks fall to either side of us, his recent distance becoming clear.  The oldest Fire Nation colonies have the highest rate of death, and it’s because _they are as much Fire Nation as the are the Earth they have lived on._ But before I can say anything, there’s a jolt I blink then look down to see the tip of a long knife in the center of my chest. Then suddenly pain strikes me, and I crumple to my knees.

 

There’s a roaring in my ears like I’m alone on the beach as  shadow passes over me. I try to breath and my vision goes gray. I blink, and see Nuan leaning over me with tears on his cheeks. I reach up, the movement painful, then nothing.

 

* * *

“-Ten. Lu Ten. Lu Ten! Lu Ten!”

  
I gasp, eyes flying open to see Sokka’s face, a concerned look on his face. I gasp, my breath shuddering in my throat, then I throw my arms around his shoulders and sob.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so I hope you like this! I don't own Avatar: TLA. There should be more at some point.


End file.
